Stephanie West Allen kindly alerted us of her impressive new initiative and blog, in collaboration with Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz, titled Brains On Purpose™. They have partnered to bring a series of seminars on neuroscience and conflict resolution: Portland, Oregon, in November 2007, and San Francisco Bay Area in January 2008-so far.  Dr. Schwartz has previously participated in a similar and fruitful initiative on The Neuroscience of Leadership with David Rock. We wish them best luck in this exciting initiative.

Stephanie writes a great blog post on “What are you feeling?” “What am I feeling?” These questions are tools for brain taming, explaining how “A flurry of articles appeared this week (such as this one in Scientific American: “Name that feeling: You’ll feel better“) about the neuroscience research showing that labeling your feelings can quiet your brain and increase impulse control”

adding that…

“In our recent article “Lead Your Brain Instead Of Letting It Lead You,” we talk about the practice of making mental notes (first described by Jeff in his book Dear Patrick: Life is Tough – Here’s Some Good Advice). Developing your skill in making mental notes can bring relief when high conflict occurs.” and “The more skilled you get at labeling, the more quickly — no matter the situation — you can return to equanimity and composure.”

Check her post to learn more about the labeling technique. Developing mental notes can be a very powerful way to self-regulate behavior, not too different from cognitive therapy and emotional self-regulation techniques.

Exciting to see more scientists and practitioners bringing research into practice! As we have mentioned, Brain Fitness is something that applies to different ages and different purposes, and this is a great example for lawyers.